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Questions . . .The tote on the right has 6 slips. The one on the left has 6 sprouted SP fingerings from fall harvest. Each fingerling has 3 or so slips growing. Should I remove some of the slips so it isn't as crowded? Can I add more MM or compost at this point or will it rot the plants? Thanks in advance.

Hi Sanderson,Remember, each slip should produce 3 potatoes! So, depending on the size of the tote, you prob. won't have enough room unless you add some mm.

In order to add some more dirt, get dirt ready/handy to go in. Reach hand into tote, in dirt, and gently lift out slips. This won't hurt the slips. Pull them all out, add some more dirt, and re-plant the slips.

I have some purple sweet potatoes that have sprouted. I have tiny 1/4 -1/2 inch leaflets coming out of one end. If I cut the SP and put it half in water how long before I have viable slips?

I've done the slip thing before in containers and had so-so luck. To get a slip i want about a 6 inch growth. I'm guessing about two weeks, since most info says roughly 6 weeks for slips but that's starting with an unsprouted SP in water.

Should I keep the slip in the kitchen window with indirect light or move it to a planting table outside that gets more full light?

NSR, Did you ever cut the potato in half and suspend in water with tooth picks? That usually produces slips with some roots. Or gently break off the slips and stick in a glass with a little water at the bottom for the roots to grow. Photo?

So this week I just twisted off the stems and dropped them into the water. 24 hours later, stems with good root starts. Planted them Wednesday in the death box planter (Yea, that planter that nothing I plant seems to do well in but volunteers grow like mad ).

Doing okay so far. Be cool cloudy mornings and sun from noonish on.

I've got a few more slips about ready to root. Thinking of seeing if they'll out compete the mint. German butterballs still aren't ready to come out.

Sweet Potato Harvest 10/10/16

I had a great crop of sweet potatoes this year. I planted them in a 2 x 8 bed, approx 18 inches apart on 5/22 and harvested on 10/10. I could have let them grow until just before the first frost (10/28) but an ant hill set up residence in the bed and I wanted to get them out of the bed before the ants took over the whole bed. These are Beauregard Sweet Potatoes from purchased Bonnie slips.

A picture of the Sweet Potatoes growing under ground. I removed the dirt from around the potatoes to show those who have never grown them what they look like growing under ground.Enlarge this imageClick to see fullsize

I divided the harvest into small, medium and large piles. This is a small pile of the ones that I consider the right size for eating. Have many more bigger ones and a small pile of smaller ones.Enlarge this imageClick to see fullsize

Sanderson asked that I resond in this thread to her question following.

Sanderson Asked in another thread: Amazing! I'm wondering if it is time to harvest here. The leaves are still mostly green with no sign of the growing vines slowing down.

Yolos, Would you also post your reply under Sweet Potatoes. Good little tutorial.

Sanderson, you can harvest the sweet potatoes at any time you think they are big enough to eat. If you are caregful, you can carefully feel down in the dirt to see what you have under the soil. Or, you can leave them to get bigger. Normally, I try to wait until just before the first frost. But the ants liked the soil in the bed and I had to hurry and harvest before they got out of hand.

@trolleydriver wrote:Yolos ... How deep is the 2x8 bed that you used for the sweet potatoes? Is it filled with MM?

TD, the bed is made with two 6" wide boards. So 5-1/2 + 5-1/2 = 11 inches tall. Yes it is filled with MM and has clay under the box. But almost all of the sweet potatoes were growing in the MM and did not get down into the clay.

Harvested today and see that I made mistakes, but much better than last year which were all fingerlings. The largest is 14 oz. Totes. When I dumped them, the lowest level was septic. I will NOT put the lids underneath next year and will fill the totes almost to the top and add straw mulch:

Fingerling harvest with grotesque looking fingerling bases.

Close up of just the fingerling-based ones.

Slip harvest (one fingerling based). Bigger, close to the same weight as the other tote, but there are insect holes!

Close up of the holes. Anyone have an idea of what did this???

Last edited by sanderson on 10/28/2016, 1:59 pm; edited 1 time in total

I have never been able to grow slips either. I end up buying Bonnie transplants. But look at what I found growing on my porch. These were sweet potatoes I harvested in the fall of 2015. Nobody wanted them because they were so big. I ended up setting them on a table on my screen porch just to get them out of the way. But they sprouted and have been growing all summer. No water, no soil. Weird. I need to cut the slips up and pot them up and grow them until next spring.

@sanderson wrote:Harvested today and see that I made mistakes, but much better than last year which were all fingerlings. The largest is 14 oz. Totes. When I dumped them, the lowest level was septic. I will NOT put the lids underneath next year and will fill the totes almost to the top and add straw mulch:

Fingerling harvest with grotesque looking fingerling bases.

Close up of just the fingerling-based.

Slip harvest (one fingerling based). Bigger, close to the same weight as the other tote, but there are insect holes!

Close up of the holes. Anyone have an idea of what did this???

Sanderson. I did NOT put the lids under my SP totes but I DID fill the totes to the top with MM. Not sure if that was such a good idea. As the SP's grew bigger, they actually pushed the MM up over the top of the tote exposing the larger ones to the light and I had to keep covering them. I will harvest one of my totes today and post pics.

I think overcrowding the totes at planting time causes the crooked SP's. The holes in your SP may have been caused by "potato borers".